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In early May, manager Al Lopez stepped down from managing the 1969 Chicago White Sox and was replaced by coach Don Gutteridge. It marked the end of Lopez's illustrious managerial career. Lopez had been brought back from retirement during the team's disastrous 1968 season, but he was not able to turn things around, and did not want to hang on for the long rebuilding process that was clearly necessary.

After an awful season in terms of attendance, management did some work to bring fans back to Comiskey Park, spending $100,000 to improve lighting in the ballpark's exterior and parking area. They also hired fifteen female ushers wearing mini-skirts to entice fans and opened a restaurant below the grandstand. They also replaced the infield grass with artificial turf, becoming the first outdoor park to use the new-fangled surface that had been introduced at the Astrodome three years earlier; however, the Sox were too poor to make over the whole field, so the outfield still had natural grass. Fences were brought in and the mound lowered in hopes of increasing offense, the latter move being taken around the league following offense falling to a disastrously low level in 1968, which would forever be known as "The Year of the Pitcher". The Sox continued to play some home games at County Stadium in Milwaukee, WI, after a successful experiment the previous season. However, home attendance remained terrible: 392,762 fans came to Comiskey Park for 59 dates, while the 11 games in Milwaukee attracted 196,784. The largest paid crowd of the year at Comiskey came during the annual exhibition game against the crosstown Chicago Cubs - presumably a lot of Cubs fans made the trek from the north side. By the end of the year, rumors were ripe that the White Sox would be moving permanently to Milwaukee in short order.